The Trivia of: The Hobbit

Add header image

This is not the first of Peter Jackson's pet projects where he has asked Guillermo del Toro to direct; del Toro was also offered to helm the now troubled Halo movie, but he turned it down to direct his own pet project Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Del Toro did accept the chance to direct this film, but after years stuck in pre-production limbo, he left to pursue other projects.

Frodo (Elijah Wood), Saruman (Christopher Lee), Galadriel (Cate Blanchett), and Legolas (Orlando Bloom) are all returning characters from the Lord of the Rings films. None of their characters actually appear in the book The Hobbit. Neither does Radagast (Sylvester McCoy). Though he is first mentioned in The Hobbit, he does not actually appear until The Lord of the Rings, though he was omitted from those films.

Martin Freeman previously appeared in Hot Fuzz, which featured cameos by director Peter Jackson as "Santa Claus," Cate Blanchett (Galadriel) as a CSI, and Bill Nighy (who played Sam Gamgee on BBC Radio) as a police officer. He also appeared in Shaun of the Dead, also opposite Nighy, as well as Penelope Wilton, who had been married to the previous Bilbo, Ian Holm.

Luke Evans (Bard) and Orlando Bloom (Legolas) also appeared together in The Three Musketeers. A previous version of this story, The Three Musketeers/The Four Musketeers featured Christopher Lee (Saruman) as Count Rochefort.